Deon Meyer - Dead at Daybreak

They drove in comfortable silence in the rain toward the mountain until she guided him through the narrow streets high up on its slope and they stopped in front of a huge house in Oranjezicht, old and Victorian. He whistled through his teeth.

“Old money,” she said. “Her father was a member of Parliament.”

The sight of Kara-An in her scarlet dress and bare feet was like a clarion call from his past – the black hair, the blue eyes, the breathtaking, strong line of chin and cheekbone and neck – and he wanted to store it all in his memory bank for later meditation. He had to shake off the feeling almost physically.

There was a lot of activity in the house, young people in white aprons arranging flowers, carrying plates and glasses to the dining room. “The caterers are still busy. Let’s go through to the library.”

Caterers? Was that how the rich did it? he wondered, and followed the two women, aware of the dark, polished wood of the antique furniture, the expensive paintings, the Eastern carpets, the wealth that glowed in the light of a thousand candles. “I’ve invited a few people,” she’d said the previous evening.

Caterers.

Jesus. How could you ask strangers to cook for your friends?

Kara-An closed the door behind them and invited them to sit down. He wondered how many of the books on the dark paneled shelves she’d read, so many leather-bound copies, so many titles stamped in gold. He realized Hope was waiting for him to say something. “You explain,” he said.

He watched the two women as Hope spoke, careful because he knew there was old, well-known, dangerous terrain here: Kara-An, who looked at him every time Hope mentioned his name, Kara-An, who listened with great concentration, but there was something else in her look, an interest. Then he saw the distance he kept from everything in his life, not for the first time. It sometimes happened when he listened to music, when he looked through a recipe book for a new dish – sometimes it seemed as if life wanted to lure him back, when the pleasures, major and minor, of a normal, happy existence wanted to seduce him into forgetting that he didn’t deserve it, couldn’t afford it. This time the siren song was stronger – a woman’s wonderful beauty, two women in front of him, Hope’s eyes, which looked pretty tonight, her legs in the black dress, the touchable bottom. He wanted to compare and consider and philosophize and desire, blatantly and obviously desire, and play a lighthearted silly game of love, start a flirtation and talk to someone about it, laugh – Lord, he needed to laugh, he wanted to laugh with someone over a glass of chilled white wine, he missed it, he missed her so terribly…and then the fear was upon him, overpowering and strong, and he retreated from his own thoughts and Hope looked expectantly at him, wanting him to say something.

“What?” he said, and he thought his voice sounded scared.

“Was that an accurate version of where we stand?”

“Yes,” he said, withdrawing into his shell in a panic.

“It’ll make good copy,” said Kara-An.

“Copy?” said Hope, who didn’t know the terminology.

“Newspaper article. I won’t have much trouble in convincing the news editor…”

“There are two important points,” Van Heerden said. They looked at him. “The story must get the angle right. And it must appear in all your dailies. In Gauteng as well.”

“What do you mean by the right angle?”

He took the papers out of his jacket pocket, pages torn from his notebook. Control had returned. “I tried something, but it’s not quite right. You’ll have to work on it.” He handed it to Kara-An Rousseau. She leaned forward, the neckline of the red dress opening for a moment. He looked away. “It must sound as if we’re on the edge of a breakthrough, as if information about Smit is not essential, merely a…”

“A bonus,” said Hope.

“Yes. We must make it sound as if we know all about the events of fifteen years ago and just want to tie up loose ends…”

“Ah,” said Kara-An. “You want creative journalism.”

“Lots,” he said.

“I know someone who specializes in it.”

“What are the chances for the front page?” he asked.

“That will depend on other news stories.”

Someone knocked on the door. “Come in,” said Kara-An.

A young woman in a white apron put her head round the door. “Some of the other guests have arrived, madam.”

“Thank you,” said Kara-An. She smiled at Zatopek van Heerden, a spectacular sight focused entirely on him. “We’ll talk again when everyone else has left.”

♦

He sat between the wife of the South African cultural attaché, a tall brown woman with very prominent front teeth and thick glasses who spoke very softly, and the businesswoman of the year, sharp-faced, thin, hyperactive, hands that were never still, mouth never shut.

“And what do you do?” asked the businesswoman of the year, before he could seat himself comfortably at the long table. And suddenly his memory threw up the world of senseless socializing of his University of South Africa era, out of nowhere, as if it had been lying in wait, ready to be recalled, the reply to “What do you do?” establishing your hierarchy in that status-conscious society. In those years he sometimes lied at cocktail parties and lunches and dinners for the sheer hell of it, saying he was an engine driver, or a security guard, then sitting back and watching the person who had asked the question struggle with a reaction. Sometimes he would come to the rescue with an “Only joking. I’m with the Department of Police Science. Lecturer,” his passport to the select company safe, his visa correctly stamped. Wendy had hated it when he did that, especially when he didn’t retract the lie: status was important to Wendy. That and the appearance of happiness and success. Seemingly for Kara-An as well. Earlier on she had introduced them to some of the people. “This is Hope Beneke, the attorney. And Van Heerden, her colleague.” The attorney. Not an attorney. The status of the article. And the deceit of the selective truth. “Her colleague.”

“I’m a policeman,” he said to the businesswoman and watched her eyes, but they gave away nothing. She immediately leaned over to Mrs. Cultural Attaché and introduced herself, then spoke to the man on her right, the doctor. He looked at the other faces around the table, Hope opposite him, Kara-An at the head, on his right twenty people who still had to conquer the stiffness of new acquaintance without the oil of alcohol. Some he had met during the predinner sherry period, the writer, the wine farmer, the dress designer, the dignified ex-actress, the millionaire businessman, the editor of a women’s magazine, the doctor ex-rugby player. And their partners. It was the partners who had looked him up and down. Stared at his clothes.

Fuck them.

And now he simply sat there, a halfhearted auditor of other people’s conversations, his mind trailing through memories of the period before Nagel, his Pretoria ascendancy, his relationship with Wendy. Mrs. Cultural Attaché didn’t say much. They formed an island of silence; she smiled sympathetically at him once or twice. He tasted the caterers’ orange butternut soup, perfect, the spiral of cream a nice decorative touch. Garnishing had been the last great challenge to his culinary skill, before his life fell apart and his mother became his only dinner guest.

“…Exchange rate is a blessing in disguise. I don’t want the rand to recover. But the government will have to do something about the trade agreement with the EU. The excise duties are killing us.”

Mrs. Millionaire Businessman sat opposite him. She was very pretty, without a wrinkle, her cheeks rosy. Her husband sat two chairs farther down, pale and tired and old. “…Move to the farm, I simply can’t cope with the crime any longer. One lives in constant fear, but Herman says he can’t run the group from Beaufort West,” she said to someone.